You'll love this one...!! A book club & more discussion

Rules
Additional Badges
WoF Anusha

Badge One - Themes

✓📍B - Books about books - Magpie Murders - 09 Feb - ★★★
✓📍C - Childhood - A Wizard of Earthsea - 18 Jan - ★★★★
✓📍D - Dogs - Fairy Tale - 1 Feb - ★★★★★
✓📍F - Fantasy - The Farthest Shore - 5 Mar - ★★★★★
✓📍G - Ghosts - Ninth House - 1 May - ★★★★
✓📍H - History - A Short History of Nearly Everything - 27 Aug - ★★★★★
✓📍L - Love - Tehanu - 10 Mar - ★★★★
✓📍M - Mythology - The Golem and the Jinni - 20 Feb - ★★★★
✓📍N - Nature - Good Soil: The Education of an Accidental Farmhand - 25 June - ★★★
✓📍P - Pirates - Captain Blood - 27 Jul - ★★★★★
✓📍R - Religion - Cat’s Cradle - 14 Jan - ★★★★
✓📍S - Survival - The Martian - 27 Mar - ★★★★
✓📍T - True Crime - The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper - 13 Apr - ★★★★★
✓📍V - Villainy - Ship of Magic - 12 Jun - ★★★★★
✓📍W - Women - Lessons in Chemistry - 15 Mar - ★★★★

1. Badge 1 Book 1
2. Badge 1 Task R- (Religion)
3. Cat’s Cradle
4. Kindle, 203 pages.
5. Read a book where religion plays a major role.
6. Religion -- Bokononism plays a major role in this end-of-the-world story where almost all the island's people practice this outlawed religion. An interesting religion.

Great to have your first book done, isn't it?

Yes, definitely! Hoping to have a better reading year this time. :)

1. Badge 1 Book 2
2. Badge 1 Task C- (Childhood)
3. A Wizard of Earthsea
4. Paperback, 264 pages.
5. Read a book that reminds you of childhood.
6. Childhood -- as a kid, I read about worlds filled with magic and magical creatures, like Harry Potter. This story of Earthsea is along the same lines.

Fortunately for you, A Wizard of Earthsea can be considered to have a theme of childhood. I think perhaps you've misunderstood the task. It is not to read a book that reminds you of childhood. It's to read a book that has the theme of childhood. You might want to read the discussion in the Badge 1 Help thread. Message 1 has a link to the definition of themes.

I took a quick look at your planned reads, and I think your Villainy & Women's choices might not fit.

Thank you, Janice! :) I will rework my to-read

1. Badge 1 Book 3
2. Badge 1 Task D- (Dogs)
3. Fairy Tale
4. Kindle, 579 pages.
5. Read a book where a dog plays a major role.
6. Dogs - Radar plays a major role in driving the story. Charlie falls in love with Mr. Bowditch's dog, Radar. Radar is an old dog about to die and Charlie wants to revive it before it happens. Charlie takes Radar to the Other to revive it on the sundial.

1. Badge 1 Book 4
2. Badge 1 Task B- (Books about Books)
3. Magpie Murders
4. Kindle, 543 pages.
5. Read a book with MPG Books about Books
6. MPG - Books about books. Magpie Murders is an Atticus Pünd novel which is the book being published in this novel.

1. Badge 1 Book 5
2. Badge 1, Task M- (Mythology)
3. The Golem and the Djinni
4. Kindle, 647 pages.
5. Read a book with MPG Mythology
6. MPG - Mythology. The story brings two mythological creatures, Golem & Djinni from Jewish and Arab cultures together. A chance encounter and the bonding of the creatures in New York, and their fight against the evil that wishes to rule them is wonderful.

1. Badge 1 Book 6
2. Badge 1, Task F- (Fantasy)
3. The Farthest Shore
4. Paperback, 259 pages.
5. Read a book with MPG Fantasy
6. MPG - Fantasy

1. Badge 1 Book 7
2. Badge 1, Task L- (Love)
3. Tehanu
4. Paperback, 270 pages.
5. Read a book with Love playing a major role.
6. The characters, Tenar and Ged, show intense parental love for the child Therru (Tehanu) and act/develop their romantic relationship.

1. Badge 1 Book 8
2. Badge 1, Task W- (Women)
3. Lessons in Chemistry
4. Kindle, 392 pages.
5. Read a book that covers feminism/ women empowerment
6. The protagonist, Elizabeth, is a very intelligent chemist but is not given her due because she is a female. She battles through without compromising on her beliefs and her mission. She encourages other women to lead a life they would like to live without bending to the cultural and societal norms.

1. Badge 1 Book 9
2. Badge 1, Task S- (Survival)
3. The Martian
4. Kindle, 385 pages.
5. Read a book with survival as the main theme
6. The protagonist, Mark, stranded on Mars, strives to survive on the planet with limited resources and cooks up a plan to get rescued. He always emerges stronger when faced with adversity, and his desire to survive does not allow him to wallow in self-pity.

Excellent choice for the Survival theme.

1. Badge 1 Book 10
2. Badge 1, Task T- (True Crime)
3. The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper
4. Kindle, 415 pages.
5. Read a book that has True Crime as MPG
6. The book covers the lives and times of the five women who were killed by Jack the Ripper. The author describes the lives of the women and their whereabouts from the available documents of the time, even though a lot of the inquest documents are lost to time. It was depressing that the popular media declared them prostitutes even though there was no hard evidence, and in some cases, the people close to the victim declared they weren't prostitutes.

1. Badge 1 Book 11
2. Badge 1, Task G - (Ghosts)
3. Ninth House
4. Kindle, 476 pages.
5. Read a book where ghosts play a major role
6. Alex, the protagonist, can see and interact with ghosts. The story starts with a death and Alex tries to determine who killed her using the occult, throwing suspicions on various societies and enlisting the help of the ghosts, risking her life to find justice to people who cannot fight for themselves.

1. Badge 1 Book 12
2. Badge 1, Task V - (Villiany)
3. Ship of Magic
4. ebook, 896 pages.
5. Read a book with a villainous character
6. Kyle, a prideful and self-absorbed fool plays a major role as a villain in the book.

(Sorry for the long rant here)

I had initially earmarked this book for a pirate-themed task, drawn in by the significant role pirates play—capturing, killing, and ransoming both goods and people. Kennit, the pirate captain, was my clear choice for the villain.

However, as I delved deeper, the disgust and anger kindled by Kyle far outstripped any response to Kennit's actions. Kyle's disregard for the sentient Liveship, inflicting pain upon her very being, is deeply unsettling. But his cruelty truly plumbs the depths in his treatment of his son: first by tearing him from the sanctity of the monastery, then by callously ignoring the crew's torture, reducing him to a slave, attempting to sacrifice him to the serpents, and ultimately, by engaging in the abhorrent slave trade.

Kennit, for all his piratical brutality—his killing and his feigned indifference—at least possesses a flicker of humanity, showing care for those he loves.

In my view, both characters are undeniably wicked. Yet, Kyle's unyielding cruelty and utter lack of empathy for anyone but himself makes him undeniably worse, eclipsing Kennit by a mile. His actions leave a far more bitter taste than any pirate's plundering.

Yes, Kyle was a piece of work.

1. Badge 1 Book 13
2. Badge 1, Task N - (Nature)
3. Good Soil: The Education of an Accidental Farmhand
4. ebook, 351 pages.
5. Read a book with MPG tag - Nature
6. MPG -> nature

1. Badge 1 Book 14
2. Badge 1, Task P - (Pirates)
3. Captain Blood
4. Kindle, 360 pages.
5. Read a book with MPG tag - Pirates
6. MPG -> Pirates. Captain Blood is a gentlemanly pirate who turns pirate due to circumstances, but never loses his principles along the way. I am in awe of his calm, sharp mind.

1. Badge 1 Book 15
2. Badge 1, Task H - (History)
3. A Short History of Nearly Everything
4. Paperback, 544 pages.
5. Read a book with MPG tag - History
6. MPG -> History. The book dives into the history of the universe and Earth, and our knowledge of how Earth and the creatures on it evolved, and the technological advances.

Congrats on finishing Badge 1. :)

Thank you, Janice! :)

Badge Two - Titles
📍A - The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness
✓📍B - Beautiful Ugly - 01 Sept - ★★★
📍C - The Catcher in the Rye
📍D - A Darker Shade of Magic
📍E - Emma
📍F - Foucault’s Pendulum
📍G - A Gathering of Shadows
📍H - Hell Bent
📍I - An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us
📍J - James
📍K - Kane & Abel
📍L - The Last Lecture
📍M - The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
✓📍N - Nettle & Bone - 04 Sept - ★★★
📍O - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
📍P - Persuasion
📍Q - The Queen's Gambit
📍R - The Running Grave
📍S - Ship of Destiny
📍T - Tilt
📍U - Upgrade
📍V -
📍W - We
📍Y -
📍Z -

1. Badge 2, Book 1
2. List Two, Task B
3. Beautiful Ugly
4. Kindle, 320 pages.

1. Badge 2, Book 2
2. List Two, Task N
3. Nettle & Bone
4. Kindle, 252 pages

I just bought Nettle & Bone this morning off of Kindle Daily Deals. Love those coincidents.